Gerle János: Palaces of Money - Our Budapest (Budapest, 1994)

The General Credit Bank of Hungary

The Dorottya utca entrance to the General Credit Bank of

Hungary with allegoric sculptures of Commerce (Mercury) and Industry by Géza Maróti.

Persuaded by his continuing success and his international acclaim (for example his being picked in 1911 to represent as an expert the Austro-Hungarian Bank in the jury when competitive designs for a branch in Vienna were adjudicated) the management of the General Credit Bank of Hungary directly commissioned Ignác Alpár to design their new head office without even inviting other tenders as was customary at the time. And yet preparing the plans took a long time, because the bank kept purchasing one plot after the other in the block bordered by József nádor tér, Fürdő (József Attila) utca, Dorottya utca and Wurm (Szende Pál) utca, which involved a further extension each time a new acquisition was made. Eventually, Alpár’s last designs provided for a facade running the length of József nádor tér, whose realisation would have resulted in a perfectly symmetrical main facade as seen on the model held by the Mercury figure, which stands on the main cornice at the main axis of the building. But then one last small neo-classical building was left untouched. (It now houses the headquarters of the Postal Bank.)

Here (and simultaneously 'with the First Pest Domestic Savings Bank) Alpár managed to solve the problem of providing sufficient natural light to the offices of the

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